Neil Good Day Center saved

Housing Commission finds funding to keep facility open

Only a month and a half before it was scheduled to close for lack of funding, the San Diego Housing Commission has found money to keep the Neil Good Day Center open. In a memo sent today to the San Diego City Council, Housing Commission CEO Rick Gentry said that after reviewing his agency's budget for the fiscal year starting July 1—per the request of City Councilmember Todd Gloria—"the Housing Commission is able to make the commitment of $500,000" to fund the Day Center through June 30, 2012.

Gentry's memo points out that the Day Center, which provides services to roughly 300 people a day and is operated by the nonprofit Alpha Project, historically has been funded through federal Community Development Block Grants, but "received no CDBG funding from the City Council" this year. A city facility, the Day Center's been open since 1991 and, as I noted in this article, is part of the city's comprehensive homeless policy. That policy, approved by the City Council in 1995, says that "Day Center services will be made available to the homeless population when needed, in order to offer unsheltered homeless persons a place to be during the daytime; personal hygiene services; and an entry point into shelters and other support services."